Get Your Feet Wet with a Freshman Seminar
A freshman seminar is a good way to facilitate a smooth transition from an intimate high-school classroom to a lecture-hall college class. You may want to supplement your schedule of large lecture classes with a freshman seminar or two.
If you are a freshman looking for a way to increase your units without greatly increasing your stress, a one-unit freshman seminar may be a good way to get your feet wet. Limited to a maximum of twenty students each, these courses are given on a passed/not passed basis. They give you an opportunity to get to know a member of the faculty while exploring a particular topic in considerable depth.
Sarah Trumble, a peer advisor in the College of Letters and Science, wishes she had taken more than one freshman seminar. "It was a great way to get to know a professor and a small group of other new students," she says. "What I love most about freshman seminars is that the professor chooses the topic, and the whole class focuses on what they are researching, or what they find most interesting about their subject." Trumble says that's why the seminar professors and students are so enthusiastic to learn. "This close interaction can be hard to find in big freshmen introductory classes, so seminars are a great opportunity," she says.
Dr. Diane Eardley, who teaches a freshman seminar course called "Nutrition: You Are What You Eat," asks her students what topics they would like to learn about. She typically covers eating disorders and the dreaded "Freshman 15" right off the bat. Dr. Eardley says seminars "give freshmen an opportunity to get to know a faculty member, since many of the freshmen classes are very large. It's an excellent opportunity to talk informally with a professor, because that skill is very important, even in large classes," she says. "You can also get to the depth of some topics in a particular field, which you don't typically get the chance to do until your senior year." Dr. Eardley has taken her students on field trips to the Isla Vista School and Fairview Farms.
Freshman Seminar Coordinator Diedre Dixon says, "A few of the classes take field trips, which is an advantage of freshman seminars that you don't necessarily get with a big lecture class." L&S Health Professions Peer Advisor Daria Thompson regrets not taking a freshman seminar. "I wish I had taken the freshman seminars - you never get another chance to take those, and they are all interesting topics you aren't going to see in big lectures," she says. Dixon points out that seminar enrollment typically does not exceed 20 students per class, facilitating student-faculty contact. "Instead of classes at Campbell Hall where there are hundreds of students, freshman seminars give students a chance to be in a small class for maximum interaction," she explains.
"The variety is great enough every quarter that there is likely a topic that should appeal to every student," Dixon says. "If not that quarter, then perhaps the following quarter." Students may earn a total of three units from all INT 94AA-ZZ courses. Approximately 95 seminars are offered per academic year, and 29 are offered this upcoming spring quarter.
Review these titles of upcoming spring 2008 seminars and consider signing up for one of these classes, designed especially to give freshmen a personalized introduction to university coursework. Click on individual links for detailed descriptions and information about faculty for each course:
INT94BJ: Nobel Prizes in the Sciences
Professor Mattanjah de Vries, Chemistry & Biochemistry
INT94BR: Adolescent Rites of Passage:
Exploring Religious Diversity in the U.S.
Professor Ines Talamantez, Religious Studies
INT94CO: Introducing Franz Kafka
Professor Laurence Rickels, Germanic, Slavic & Semetic Studies
INT94CU: Science and Culture
Professor Gerardo Aldana, Chicano Studies
INT94DK: A Materials World: Revolutions in Society
Professor Fred Lange, Inorganic Materials
INT94DN: Race and American Law
Professor John S.W. Park, Asian American Studies
INT 94DW: Cookery & Nutrition in Antiquity
Professor Dorota Dutsch, Classics
INT 94GG: The Exploration of Identity –
Personal, Cultural, Familial, Sexual
Professor Kip Fulbeck, Department of Art
INT 94GM: So You Want To Be A Leader?
Professor Naftaly Glasman, Education
INT94GN: Study Abroad and Cultural Adaptation
Professor William Ashby, French & Italian
INT94HU: Food & Religion
Professor Juan Campo, Religious Studies
INT94HZ: Collectors & Collecting
Professor W.D. King, Theater & Dance
INT94IG: Wireless Cultures
Professor Lisa Parks, Film & Media Studies
INT94IL: Representing Hitler & Nazism, 1925 – 2007
Professor Harold Marcuse, History
INT 94IO: This is Your Brain on Drugs
Professor Karen Szumlinski, Psychology
INT94IR : Music in Political & Documentary Film
Professor Patricia Z. Hall, Music
INT94JG: Death, Revenge & Madness in Icelandic
Literature and Culture
Professor Viola Miglio, Spanish & Portuguese
INT94JK: Latin America in Film
Professor Ellen McCracken, Spanish & Portuguese
INT94KG: New Orleans & Hurricane Katrina: History, Culture,
and Public Policy
Professor Clyde Woods, Black Studies
INT94KH: The Lives of Dead Bodies: Studies in Contemporary Media
Professor Bishnupriya Ghosh, English
INT94LB: Art & Activism
Professor Susan Derwin, German, Germanic, Slavic & Semetic
INT94LD: Energy: Will There Be Enough?
Professor Eric Matthys, Engineering
INT94LN: Controversial Issues in the Biological Sciences
Professor Thomas Even, Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology
INT94LV: Biotechnology & Society
Professor Doug Thrower, Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
INT94LW: Race, Place & Power
Professor George Lipsitz, Black Studies
INT94LX: Religion in Visual, Virtual & Cyber Worlds
Professor Rudy Busto, Religious Studies
INT94LY: Preserving Modern Architecture in Southern California
Professor Sven Spieker, Russian, Germanic, Slavic & Semitic Studies
INT94LZ: The Art and Life of the Actor
Professor Irwin Appel, Theater and Dance
INT9MA: Terrorism, Political Violence & Human Rights in the Andes
Professor Cecilia Mendez, History
